


it takes the truth to fool me

by derogatory



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 22:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/pseuds/derogatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula, stripped of her powers and sanity at the end of the Great War, is forced to live with Uncle at his Ba Sing Seh teashop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> post series fic I've been working on since.. the show ended?? Right now it is at 25 pages and nowhere near completion. but I can't post 40+ pages at once so.. here's the first 13 pages. yeah. 13.

Bending a human being isn't a fix-anything trick, Aang explains. He can't just bend the water out of Katara, or bend it into Sokka (Sokka heaves a sigh of relief). Changing Ozai could have ended the wrong way. They were lucky he wound up harmless-- it might not completely work with someone like Azula. After her capture, Aang only took out some of her fire bending abilities before his strength left him, and the girl's force began to bleed into him.

Zuko scowls but understands. “Then we'll keep her locked up until you can.”

Seated at the war table, the Avatar's feet don't touch the floor. Aang hasn't forgotten the crack of her lightning in the Avatar state, and he can still feel Ozai’s energy within him. 

“I don't know if I ever can,” he mumbles. 

Since life-long imprisonment is the only other option for Azula, Mai suggests one of the cells where she had banished her friends. That ends up being impossible because even the Boiling Rock can't hold Azula. When Zuko tries to argue this, Mai accuses him of compassion, but he can't remember feeling that for his sister in a long time. Instead they send her to an asylum in a dark corner of the Fire Nation and work on forgetting her.

But the night they bring Ursa back from Whale Tail Island, she spends it on the other side of her daughter's padded cell. The next day, she starts asking to let Azula out. 

 

 

“Speaking for Sokka,” Toph drawls, wriggling her feet onto the piles of maps. “I'm gonna just say that like- strategically? This is kinda a step backwards.”

“We don't have a choice.” Zuko scrubs a hand over his face. 

“We agreed your father couldn't go free even without his fire bending,” Katara presses. “It doesn't make any sense that Azula gets off the hook when she's still dangerous- worse than dangerous!” There's a beat of silence before she sets a soft hand on the Avatar’s arm. “I'm sorry, Aang. We tried it your way, but now we might have to-”

“That's not an option.” He shakes his head. Katara's face flushes with mutiny, and she pulls back. The Fire Lord sighs, casting an imploring look around the table.

"I don't know why Mother thinks so, but if she says I can't keep Azula locked up forever then I don't really have a choice, okay?” The group shifts uncomfortably in their seats.

“I thought you said she was crazy.” Sokka eases into the conversation beside his own incensed sister.

“She is,” Zuko insists, as if there had ever been any doubt. “But my mother says in the asylum she won't get better.”

“Oookay. Question-” Sokka hesitantly raises his hand. “Do we want Azula to get better?”

“Even if she does, it's not like she'll show Mother any gratitude,” the Fire Lord grumbles.

“You don't think she'd hurt her own mother?” Katara recoils from the question, disgusted. Zuko is the only one who catches Toph rolling her eyes.

“Probably,” he replies grimly. “But that's why I have a plan.”

 

 

Appa’s not a means of conveyance for a war criminal, so they transport her by carriage. Given half a chance even a powerless Azula would manipulate an escape, so Zuko has to make the trip with her. It’s a safety precaution that’s all, his mind nags of Mai's accusation. Killing Azula won’t solve anything.

( “Says you,” Mai scoffs. He shudders. )

It isn't like he wants to be in a metal cage alongside of his maniacal sister, thundering through the desert. Tension between him and the subdued girl raises to the point that Zuko feels like a child again, anxious to run as far from Azula as possible.

He wishes Mother had come along.

“I know where we are,” Azula says minutes after the carriage enters the city. The siblings rode in steely silence for hours, interrupted only by the rattling of Azula's chains. Zuko glances after her taunt, catching the girl’s lofty expression through her unkempt hair.

“Yeah?”

“Of course I recognize it.” She smiles opulently beneath the blindfold. “I captured this city.” As the carriage doors snap open, Zuko squints against the light.

“You stole it,” their uncle corrects and extends his hand.

 

 

“Please be careful, Uncle,” Zuko begs.

The guards test a series of deadbolts installed into Azula's new bedroom door. Anything she could use as a weapon is removed from her reach, down to the last nail in the floorboards. Zuko's mind strays throughout the familiar compartments, listening to the wooden creak from his time of peaceful civility. This place won't hold Azula for a moment.

“I have looked after you at your worse," Iroh shrugs. "Your little sister will be a piece of cake.”

 

 

 

( That night, through the heavy locks-

“I was _seconds_ away from becoming the Fire Lord,” she screams.

“Yes.” Uncle takes a sip of his latest brew. “I remember that feeling.” )

 

 

“Your crazy sister burnt down Ba Sing Seh yet?” Toph broaches the taboo topic easily when she passes the royal escort in the hall. While Zuko initially would have expected nothing less than the entire Earth Kingdom up in flames, Azula's freedom proves disturbingly boring for the first month. For every three letters Zuko forwards to the Earth Kingdom, Iroh sends a postcard. Azula sleeps a lot mostly, he mentions blithely. Tell Ursa to come try our Oolong!

“I would like to visit her,” Mother confesses over dinner, handing the latest vague card back to Zuko. The Fire Lord pushes food across his plate, impossibly jealous for his sister's insanity that dominates their mother's attention.

The next week Iroh sends a note that reads _Azula starts work at the shop with me tomorrow!_ When a horrified Zuko passes the letter between his friends, he and Aang are the only two people who look worried.

“It’s not funny!” Zuko shouts over the din. “Stop laughing!”

“I can't breathe,” Sokka wheezes, leaning on his giggling sister for support.

 

 

 

Iroh sits thinking in the late summer sun, Zuko’s hysterical response in his lap. He doubts there’s a reason in the world to convince his nephew to allow Azula to work, but it hasn’t stopped him from trying. So far he has her serene sense of balance, Mei Lien having to take maternity leave a month early and that the princess could use some improvements to her social skills. They aren't lies, because Azula is quite coordinated. But without a purpose, the mind decays. Iroh remembers how the tip of a battle formation used to call to him like the North Star. Azula equally thought of her lofty position as the guiding point to all she did. Now, however, the look in her eyes between tantrums is one Iroh saw enough of the mirror after Lu Ten died, and he has no intention of allowing it in his home anymore.

_She likes to keep busy_ , Iroh eventually explains. _Don't worry Nephew! No one can replace your tea serving abilities._

(“He's totally going senile,” Mai glowers at the letter while Zuko tries to arrange emergency travel plans.)

 

 

On the first day at her new job, Azula slams a fist through a window and bleeds all over the stove. On the second day- perhaps disillusioned by her loss of power- she doesn't leave her room. On the third day she rips the apron into a thousand pieces. On the fourth day she doesn't get out of bed. On the fifth day she stands straight as a willow and pours boiling tea on a woman.

“Azula, a twenty percent tip is generous,” he reminds her.

“She's lucky,” Azula shrugs. “If she had tried that after my powers had returned, I'd have burnt the skin from her bones.”

“Is that what you think?” Uncle peers over the empty cups at her, long and quizzical. “I wonder if my brother in prison has your optimism.”

It takes half a week to get her out of her room again. Lost abilities; that's a sensitive topic, Iroh notes to himself, leaving a meal outside her door.

The sixth time Azula ventures into employment, she tries to take one of the tea patrons hostage. The shop rakes in four times the usual tips based on her 'performance'. One customer represents the king’s favorite acting troupe- but Uncle says his niece is too proper a lady for that profession. She kicks through a window the seventh day. Iroh begrudgingly admits this isn’t terrible news as she’s less likely to try and run away with glass in her foot.

“Hold still,” he asks, serenely applying alcohol as she knees him in the beard.

 

 

“Why doesn’t anyone recognize me?” she demands when her racist tirades once again fail to elicit a response from the crowds.

“Azula, you are the first Fire Nation warrior to fully subjugate Ba Sing Seh,” Iroh smiles knowingly at the beam that elicits from her. “You’re a much larger than life figure than a simple tea shop girl.”

“Obviously,” she scoffs, making a dive for silverware before Uncle deftly hides them within his sleeve. “But how stupid are these commoners? I’ve told them I was the Fire Lord Azula-”

“- and _I’ve_ told them about the round-the-clock care you received before coming here.” He shrugs and the girl’s attitude simmers to a low boil at being thought of as just some crazy relation. “Princess, I wish you wouldn’t think of this place as a prison or as a way to inflict revenge on these people.”

“Oh, and what should I see this as?” she snarls.

“A job opportunity of course!” _I deserved that_ , he chuckles as the shop’s entire collection of dishware is flung at his skull.

 

 

After a serious escape attempt ends in her being dragged home by the Terra Team, Azula devises a new strategy. Having her enemies cart her kicking and screaming through the city she once captured was shameful enough-- even if Azula was the only person who understood the significance. Resolute, she concedes to avoid another escape until her fire bending reappears. This doesn’t imply she has any intention of starting a sick civilian life with Uncle Fatso in the Earth Kingdom either, however. It’s only that the asylum was full of sugary doctors and whining patients who cried when you knocked their teeth down their throat. By comparison this is a great deal more entertaining prison, and Azula had prior experience and happy memories of misleading idiot earth benders.

The Jasmine Dragon is in the upper district of Ba Sing Seh, which has affords Iroh a prestigious set of clientele. Several high ranking officials Azula recalls from her occupation of the city often stop by, but none seem to recognize them- or care if they do. She uses the seeming invisibility of a servant to pass through the tables, circling between conversations of the powerful members of the Earth Kingdom. In the meantime, she makes an effort to slosh hot tea on anyone who’s face she particularly dislikes, or trip people as they pass. No one has yet to take up any actions against her, but she gives their earth bending hospitality only a few more weeks. More importantly, Azula can’t guarantee her the façade much longer than that either.

At the end of a particularly successful day (three men and two women tripped- one was even holding a baby!), Azula is intercepted on her way upstairs by Uncle and an unknown woman. She seems particularly regal, though Earth Kingdom women tend to wear the same amount of makeup as Fire Nation whores, so she holds off on making any assumptions.

“There you are, Azula! Lady Yin, this is my niece.” The look on the crone’s face tells Azula she’s heard some variation of the pitiful background story Uncle devised for her. She carefully overturns a few cups of the more expensive tea while Uncle and the old woman dog her tracks back.

“You should not be rude,” her uncle warns, trying to beckon the girl back by testing her patience. “After all, this woman has brought a present for you.” Azula lingers in the stairwell, debating if it was more worthwhile to slam a door in their faces or imply drop this proposed gift to the floor. She wanders back to her uncle skeptically. 

“She’s not wearing the apron,” the old woman clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “She’ll ruin her clothing.”

“I’m to blame for indulging her,” Iroh laughs, helping Lady Yin pass over the present to his niece. “And she’s a bit of a tom boy.” He happily presses the crooked plant in a cheap pot in Azula’s hands. The trunk of the miniature tree is twisted and coiled as though its in pain. She’s not entirely sure if the object will sprout legs under the dirt and run after them, so Azula abstains- for the moment- from dropping it.

“A plant,” she glowers between the branches. “What do I care about this?”

“Oh, but you should!” the woman titters. “Careful maintenance of a bonsai tree is thought to be very soothing for a restless spirit.”

“My spirit isn’t the problem,” Azula bristles. “I think the only person with a problem are the idiots in this town foolish enough to allow me such generosity. My return to power will be on your backs, making my way further by climbing over the charred remains of a certainly king’s royal palac--”

“She has such an elaborate imagination!” Uncle laughs thinly, leading Azula around Lady Yin as easily as he would herd a cat. “You know during our time abroad she saw a show by the Ember Island Players and- such a memory!”

“She certainly has the flair for the dramatic, I have heard that,” the woman beams-- something Azula finds worse than her pity. “But Iroh, if you don’t close shop soon, we will be late for _our_ show.” With an embarrassed chuckle, Uncle hastily leaders Azula up the steps and back into their private compartments. His niece, having caught onto who this insipid old woman and her crooked plant life is to him, happily launches herself upon the topic.

“You’re going on a date?” Azula shoots a menacing look over her shoulder, pushing back against his desperate attempts to move her down the hallway. “Did I embarrass you terribly around your new girlfriend? Do you really think at your age you can start a new life with some Earth Kingdom nobody?”

“We enjoy one another’s company very much, yes,” he clears his throat, responding only halfheartedly to her tirade. Iroh tugs her along, refusing to let the girl linger in the front room, the kitchen, pressing urgently towards the only place in the apartment that locks from the outside.

“She’s too old to have children, don’t you think?” Azula adds, feet sliding against the smooth floors until she’s past the threshold into her cell again. She makes an effort to get this out quickly, already knowing how their conversation will end. “If you ask me, what with your only offspring dead and Zuko no longer interested in your advice, I think you should give up trying to have a family-” As predicted, the door slams centimeters from her face. Her expression drifts into a low, comfortable smile as the locks snap into place on the other side of the barricade.

Iroh sighs, smiling grimly at the ease with which Azula can still hurt good people. 

“No, Azula. You are my family.”

 

 

Once, preoccupied with the appearance of several higher ranked Earth Kingdom officials, Iroh asked his niece to “Please boil water for our guests.” After Azula realized she would have to use a spark-rocks to start a fire, they nearly had to replace the entire kitchen appliance.

“When I have my abilities back,” she shrieks. “I will burn this miserable shop, this disgusting hovel, everything you care about to the ground.”

“Now, Azula,” Iroh murmurs, working to catch the girl’s wrists to keep her from hurting herself further. “That’s no way to show gratitude to your elders.”

_How are things going?_ Zuko’s latest letter asks in that same anxious handwriting with which he signs imperial decrees. Iroh’s back aches as he bends over to pick up the remains of the kitchen-set, to scrub blood from the countertops while listening to Azula howl behind locked doors and imagine an answer to that question.

(“‘When are you coming to visit, Nephew?’” Ursa reads aloud, her voice bright. “Oh, I think he misses you,” she teases, winding an arm with her son’s.)

 

 

An evening after closing hours, Uncle returns to the apartment with fresh vegetables and a unknown figure. Azula regards the young stranger leisurely- he's Earth Kingdom and slouching and she doesn't have the time to give him a second thought.

“Azula, I'd like you to meet Junren.”

“Hello,” he smiles apprehensively. Azula scoffs. Iroh appears unfazed. 

“I was thinking the two of you could become better acquainted.”

“Why?” she snaps. Uncle always has some sort of ulterior motive, and giving him the slightest bit of leeway opens one to his surprise antics.

“Well…” Iroh pretends to possess some hesitation in admitting this, though Azula can tell from his grin he's enjoying every second of the charade. “He's your age, Azula, and Junren your mother did mention you don't have a girlfriend-” Azula’s head snaps up, on her feet in an instant.

“No!” Both teenagers shout (though Junren weakly manages to add a "please" when she glowers at him). Iroh commends himself for choosing a boy with the reflexes to dodge the princess’s punches. He has to applaud his own ability as well to convince the teens that a trip to fetch more tea leaves from the back room would go faster if they went together. They really look very cute together- when Azula isn’t scowling like that and the boy stops shaking. He considers letting Junren take her for a walk to the main square, but regrets that Azula still can’t be trusted on her own.

Junren is quick- Uncle barely spots him as he darts out the door, white as a sheet. Azula saunters into the room like a polar leopard that’s spooked its prey- still hungry but innately pleased with himself.

“Not your type?” Uncle calls over his shoulder. She rounds on him, having no patience for the old man’s insolence.

“Are you out of your mind?” she snarls. “First of all, as if a Fire Nation Princess would want anything to do with an Earth bending commoner! Secondly, he is hardly even a bender at all; He is taking remedial classes at the university- what sort of man doesn't utilize his birthright from the moment he's on this earth? Especially an earth he can mold with his own hands! _I_ didn't waste a moment with _my_ abilities.”

“No, you did not.”

“And finally! He's nothing more than a child! He's shorter than me and exudes not only a complete lack of potential, but absolutely no confidence behind even the most mundane of decisions!”

When Azula slams the door behind her, Iroh underlines the following passage in his notes-

_Needs to be taller_.

 

 

During a lunchtime rush, Azula stumbles on the rug and slops white hot Longjing over her left hand. She snatches the salve from Uncle and commands him to return to his work. As the blister hisses red and aches, Azula recalls the last time she was burned. 

She wraps her hand in cloth and avoids thinking about Zuko.

 

 

Ty Lee gets some vacation time in the fall and inexplicably decides to spend it with Azula.

“I don't think so,” Azula laughs in her face and Iroh wastes two cups of tea trying to get the idiot to stop crying. Eventually the sound of it gets on the princess's nerves, and she shoves him aside to deal with the circus freak herself. Ty Lee, for all the falls to the head she’s taken, has enough sense to stop sniffling when she’s alone with Azula. With a rough sigh, Azula shoves the kettle across the table. Ty Lee quickly takes the hint and pours them each other cup.

“I didn't know you liked tea, Azula,” she chirps, voice still a little watery.

“I don’t.” The silence is long enough they follow Iroh’s entire conversation with Lady Yin (“Are they-” Azula nods grimly and Ty Lee makes a few grossed out noises.) When she almost chokes on her tea giggling at the pet names, Azula resists the urge to clap Ty Lee on the back. Ty Lee must have seen the tensing of her arm and because she takes the opportunity to be serious.

“I'm sorry for everything.” She reaches for Azula’s hands. The princess can almost feel her old friend’s windpipes crushing under her grip. But when she opens her eyes, she’s alone in the shop with cold tea and an unharmed Kyoshi warrior. 

“I don't care,” Azula waves the outstretched hands aside. “So if you’ve come here expecting me to redeem your treacherous inclinations, it‘s not happening.” Ty Lee scowls like she used to when Mai made fun of her lipstick.

“I came,” she counters coldly, “Because I sorta hoped you weren’t so grumpy anymore!”

“What do I have to be happy about?” Azula yawns.

“Aren't you at least happy to be out of prison?”

“Are you?” the princess counters, edging a clay cup off the table. Ty Lee flinches at the crash. 

“Sometimes,” she concedes at last, hands twisted in her lap. “Not if I have to see you like this.” Azula casts her a look that she doesn't want pity while Ty Lee hastily explains, “But Azula, its just-- I mean your _aura_ -”

“What?” She leans forward on an elbow, her smirk extending far past the table. “Let me guess, the Avatar's taken that now too. But don’t worry, I’ll let you examine it when I take my revenge out of you.” Locks clattering behind Azula’s departure, Uncle brings a wad of tissues to the table. Ty Lee clutches him close, smearing makeup in his beard. 

“Her aura is beautiful,” she sniffles. “Tell her for me.”

 

 

“Your friend is very happy for you,” Iroh explains, looking up from a set of dirty dishes. Azula continues carving lines into the wall with a butter knife and her uncle continues, “I am very happy for you too.” Azula yawns. 

“What is everybody so happy about anyway?” She flings the knife narrowly close to Uncle’s back. “I haven't accomplished anything in this place.”

“I don't have to lock you in your room anymore, do I?” 

That night, Azula finds her door is deadlocked like old times. 

“I know you very well, princess,” Iroh calls through the barrier as he goes for a late night bathroom run. “You do so well when you're not trying to get the jump on innocent people.”

“‘Innocent’?” she screams, smashing her fists against the door.

 

 

One of Uncle's friends knows their true identities and, despite Azula's suspicions, has promised to keep it a secret. That doesn't prevent him from such arrogance, however, like smiling knowingly across the table to Iroh's niece.

“Are you enjoying life as a civilian?” he asks genially. Azula strikes him so hard she could've sworn steam rose from the mark. At dinner she and Uncle sit in an unusual silence, her flurry of thoughts a palpable barrier to Iroh's insistent conversation. When she gets up, Uncle calls,

“Whatever you're considering, I believe you should think it over again.”

After the sun sets, she presses her hands to the floor and concentrates on lighting the timber, on burning the entire block to ashes. My abilities are here, she hisses desperately. I'm not a civilian. Just one spark. But instead of smoke, she wakes up to the smell of Uncle cooking breakfast. The groves in the hardwood floor leave little imprints against her face when she sits up. Iroh's face twitches into a smile despite her anguished expression, the helpless gestures behind her actions.

“You'll catch a cold, Azula,” he chides, carrying the soup to the table. “Sleeping on the floor like this.”

 

 

In the winter, Zuko has a meeting with the Earth King to discuss the current state of his reparations, and in his free time agrees to stay with Iroh. Uncle has to admit the Fire Lord will be forced to sleep on the couch for this visit- Azula has his old room. 

"Though you're more than welcome to share a bed with me, Nephew! Like old times." Brother and sister wear identical looks of disgust.

Iroh makes a great show of noting that the siblings haven’t seen each other since Zuko left the princess in his care. While Zuko had made several threats to storm into Ba Sing Seh and salvage the disaster zone Azula normally leaves in her wake, he had been unable to find time away. The situation at home is not good, Uncle admits when Azula overhears talk of the Fire Nation nationalists.

“But I don’t think we should talk business with your brother when he gets here,” Uncle advises when Azula asks a few too many questions.

“Because it’s not my business?” Her fingers tighten into familiar fire bending seals.

“Well, I don’t think it would be much of a vacation for him if we did.”

When the day of the visit arrives, Zuko drops off his things at the apartment before he heads to the deliberations. Azula doesn't go downstairs to greet him, or to see the fine Fire Nation construction of his imperial luggage and royal robes up close. From her room (window still barred with wood- flammable wood) she glares out at the landscape of the town, trying to pinpoint where on the wall her drill broke through. She gets so angry her eyesight goes blurry and Uncle has to hurry and buy several new plates when she's through with her first tantrum of the day. It’s been such a long time since he needed to repair dishware over her bad attitude that they raised the price of clay.

“Now, now,” he chides. “You don't want me to lock you in your room for Zuko's visit.”

“Oh, I think Zuzu would prefer it,” she grumbles and tries to kick the stool out from under the old man. 

By the time Zuko returns in the evening, exhausted from the proceedings, his sister has worked herself into an indelible fervor.

“I hope you're hungry,” Uncle smiles despite the seething girl over his shoulder. “Azula here has worked up quite the appetite waiting for you.” It’s only midway through the first course before the princess makes her demands.

“No,” Zuko counters over their noodles.

“I don’t see what good I'm doing here,” Azula snaps. “I'm not asking to be reinstated as Fire Lord-”

“You were never Fire Lord,“ Zuko hurriedly hides a smirk behind his soup spoon. Just as fast, Uncle grabs a vase from Azula before she cracks her brother’s skull with it.

“You have me in a city of enemies!” she snarls. “At least in the asylum I wasn't on foreign ground.”

“These people are not your enemies,” Iroh cuts in smoothly, trying to set a calming hand on her arm. “Remember? You get along so well with them.” He shoots an anxious look to his nephew. “She is not usually like this.”

“Yes she is,” Zuko rebuffs what Azula realizes is Uncle's attempt to paint her in a better light. She can't understand why he would do this, and it dumbfounds her enough that her brother is allowed to continue. “Bringing you back to the Fire Nation _is_ putting you in a city of enemies- my enemies.” He sighs, directing a further explanation to Iroh, “As long as she’s here, the King says they can keep some of the worst nationalists out. With the updated watch list, the likelihood of some rogue lunatic getting to Azula is-” Her laughter cuts him off.

“So is this for my safety, Brother?” she sneers, shoving her food aside to draw a reluctant Zuko closer. “I highly doubt any of the nationalists assume you'd be hurt by my death.”

“They may not want to kill you, Azula, but these are bad people.” Iroh says warningly.

“Like you,” Zuko mutters, pushing aside his own bowl of food.

“What,” she breezes. “I'm a bad person because I don't worship you like the Avatar and his commoner friends?”

“You're a bad person because of what you've done to this country!” Zuko snaps, any earlier patience he had thinning by the second. “I can't believe I have to waste all this time cleaning yours and dad's mess and then you ask me to let you go!” His sister's face darkens considerably.

“‘Mess’?” she echoes with a laugh. “Father made our country better than all the others combined.”

“Why do we have to be better, huh?” Zuko demands, rising. “Why can't we all work together? Why is that so terrible?”

“Because we are better,” Azula replies nonchalantly and takes a sip of her tea. The more Zuko explodes, the calmer she feels. After months of being the only one screaming, it was refreshing to see someone else let loose. “Well, I am. Not you. I'll be happy to demonstrate that to you when I get my powers back." She flexes her fingers and Zuko snaps.

“You're not getting your fire bending back!” he cries, coming around the table only to have Azula slap Zuko's hands away. “The Avatar took it away for good!” Face pink with jealousy, he rails on, “This is your life from now on; living with Uncle, serving tea! No responsibilities, no subjects, no stupid royal duties, so why can't you just be happy?”

“How could I be happy without my power?” she hisses, eyes flickering throughout the room that suddenly seems impossibly small. “That’s pathetic.”

“You’re pathetic,” he counters obstinately. “All you care about is whether or not you’re stronger or better than everyone else. No wonder you hate living with these people- they’ve got lives! They know who they are, and you’re just some _crybaby_ who’s nobody without your fire bending!” Zuko has more than enough ammunition to continue, but stops short when it's clear his sister isn't listening. The color sinks from her face as she shoves back at the Fire Lord. Azula sweeps the remainder of their dinner to the floor, and scrambles away to give herself air, the room shaking with the force of the door she slams behind her. Azula collapses in her room, fingers pressed to the kindling wood of their home, again trying to create a firestorm at the end of her nerves. Even at her angriest, she mourns, there's not even a spark.

Outside the apartment, Zuko declines Uncle's original offer. He'll stay at the palace tonight instead, making his way there through the back alleys- which isn't safe, Uncle scolds.

“I’ll be fine,” Zuko tries for a little wry humor, adding, “I mean, I still have _my_ fire bending.” Uncle's expression remains stony, so much so Zuko would feel guilty if the person he offended had been anyone other than Azula.

“I am trying to help your sister become a better person,” Iroh reminds him. “When you are cruel to her, she falls back on her bad habits.”

“Azula doesn't have good habits,” Zuko fumes, tugging his hood over his head. “Look, Mother's plan failed. We should just take her back to the asylum before she hurts someone.”

“I do not think that's wise, Zuko,” Iroh says firmly, but the boy leaves before he can argue the matter further.

Closing the door behind him, her uncle spots Azula at the top of the stairs, expression unreadable. He sighs, slowly beginning the ascent to meet the shaking girl.

“Don't you worry, princess. Your brother is just upset because he has been working too hard,” Iroh begins, tugging at his beard. “If you ask me, I think you've made a lot of progress since you first came here. And I know your Mother feels-”

“I don't feel so good,” Azula mumbles and slouches against the railing. Iroh lurches ahead to catch her before she falls.

 

 

In her dream she drowns in one of the courtyard ponds while her mother watches, Father’s hands pushing down on her shoulders. 

She wakes up screaming, water on her face. Uncle holds the damp cloth to her burning forehead, trying to look wise and sympathetic all at once. She nearly snaps his fingers in her desperate grip and faints.

 

 

(“Azula’s sick,” Katara reads the letter aloud to the meeting that convenes in Zuko's absence.

“Good?” Sokka manages at last, tugging at his White Lotus collar.)

 

 

Even after Azula crushes the Avatar’s skull beneath her fingers, he still reaches forward, and the proof of her power and birthright slips away from her in an instant, leaving her a nobody.

 

 

“What did you do to me?” she hisses in a flicker of lucidity.

“This is a metamorphosis,” Uncle eases water towards her sputtering mouth. “It looks like your brother’s words had quite the impact on you.” His face looks as though he’s making light of the situation, but it serves to only make Azula’s uneasy stomach drops further. 

“I’m not going to change into someone he likes,” she mumbles and rolls on her side away from him. Gingerly rising to his feet, Uncle takes her obduracy as a cue to leave.

“No,” he confesses, leaving one light burning. “But I think you may change into someone _you_ like.”

 

 

Ty Lee hits her pressure points and laughs cheerfully when Azula falls. She lies begging between them while Mai slides hot knives under her skin.

 

 

“It's too hot,” she whimpers, tossing in her sleep.

“I'm here, my darling,” Mother murmurs, pushing the hair off Azula’s brow. 

The door slams in another room and Azula's eyes snap open. She shifts under the pile of blankets, eyes squinting through the darkness only to realize she's alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where i was always a winner and i was barely alone.

Zuko hovers in the entryway to the apartment, lost and disturbed with his sister’s presence.

“I don't think I have to tell you what's happening.” Uncle pours a cup for his nephew, gesturing for him to take a seat. “It won't be much longer now.”

“Azula can't change,” he replies instantly, beginning to pace the length of the room. "She's been this way since we were kids. She's not going to become a good person now."

“You changed,” Iroh points out and the Fire Lord counters instantly,

“I'm not crazy!” In the silence after his shout, Zuko hears a furious sob behind the locked door. Uncle follows his gaze.

“Would you like to bring her some water?”

“No,” Zuko mutters, previous courage towards Azula melting away, “I should go.”

“Prince Zuko,” Uncle scolds. He falls back on the old title whenever he lectures ,despite the boy's ascension to the throne. “I don't think your sister is going to fight with you in this state.”

“It’s just weird!” he bursts, finally sitting, collapsing into a seat beside the old man. “It’s not like I care or anything.” He grimaces at the shaming glower Iroh sends him and finally counters, “Like you would care if it was Father in there-” When Uncle rises, back impossibly straight, Zuko averts his gaze, letting the man disappear to bring Azula water. He waits in the front room in silence, trying to feel out the familiar atmosphere of his old home between Azula's sickness and the heavy hatred between them.

 

 

Uncle pleasantly explains this will keep anyone from recognizing her. 

“After all, you don't want to stand out amongst your enemies, right?” he advises with a smile, slopping another ladle of boiling water against her howling face.

“It’s all right, Princess,” Iroh murmurs as she thrashes and shrieks within her hallucination, gagging on the cool water he offers. “It’s almost over.”

 

 

Zuko stands by the window, the light from street lanterns reflecting red off his ceremonial robes. He catches Azula’s bleary eyes watching him, gingerly awakening at the tail end of her illness.

“Feel any different?” he asks, trying to keep his voice neutral. She doesn’t reply. If he remembers the sickness right, her throat’s probably too raw with thirst and screaming to say much. “Um,” he scuffs his foot against the floor, wishing he hadn’t bolstered the courage to apologize to Uncle in this way. “Are you still having bad dreams?”

Azula doesn’t move, but he already knows the answer from the crying in her sleep. Stupid question, he groans.

“I just mean- I remember when it happened to me,” Zuko continues eyes downcast to the mats along the floor. “I dreamt about you.” When that fails to elicit a response, he peeks after her, checking she’s still awake. Her eyes are closed and it’s tough to tell if the shallow breathing is just the fever’s effects, but he ventures forward hesitantly, “So. Did you have any about me?”

“This is one right now, isn't it?” she rasps. She drags a hand from under the blankets, extending an arm towards her brother. Zuko doesn’t move an inch, not when her fingers shakily slide into a recognizable seal and her eyes narrow in a nostalgic way that precedes a lightning strike. He thinks about Katara’s suggestion to try another way, Mai’s blatant request to have her killed. Zuko isn’t sure what the feeling is, watching Azula weakly lash out with bending that refuses to respond. He wouldn’t venture to say the feeling in the pit of his stomach was compassion or pity, but maybe awe for Aang’s abilities. Azula doesn’t even register in that part of his brain. She’s like a frightened animal at the end of a hunt. He sighs- this probably isn’t what Uncle meant by trying to talk with her.

“Look, the way you are- how you’ve always been-- you can never come home,” he says at last, trying to keep it to the point even when Azula’s steely gaze usually makes him ramble. “And if I was you I wouldn’t want to come home. Stuff is really bad.”

“Nationalists,” she hisses, and even though there’s a great deal more admiration in her voice than Zuko would like, he chimes in,

“Nationalists, yeah. And they don’t like me. Or you,” he adds the warning in case the exhausted girl got any ideas. “I mean, they don’t like anything as far as I can tell!” He leans his head far enough back it makes an audible thump in the darkened room. “It’s like... The more I say I’m sorry, the more nationalists I make. And if I stop saying sorry, the less the other countries want to work with me. There’s no right way.”

“Father’s w-” she coughs, though it was clear Zuko intended to cut off that train of thought anyhow.

“I was bad at serving tea,” he announces in a dull voice. “But I’m probably worse at being a Fire Lord.” He smiles grimly past her stance. “I bet you're the same way.” He remembers his previous and snobbish statement that she never really was Fire Lord, and Uncle’s disapproving face. That was all just posturing, Zuko admits. He’s not built for these kind of decisions. 

“Hey,” he breathes. “If you really do change, maybe someday you can come home and we can switch places."

When Azula opens her eyes, it’s morning. The room feels steady when she shoves the blankets away and her forehead is dry. Zuko’s things are missing from the front room, and Uncle is asleep in a kitchen chair, a blanket over his shoulders. She fills the kettle instinctively and lights the flame with spark-rocks. In the light of a clear day, it doesn’t seem like such a failure.

 

 

( “So,” Katara asks when Zuko checks in after his return.

“So what?” the Fire Lord echoes, shifting the crown irritably over his head. Wearing it after all this time makes his neck feel stiff. 

“Has she changed?” Sokka bursts, waving a hand idly between them, “Not that I believe in that kinda junk, but you made it sound like it was gonna be some huge thing, so-?” )

 

 

Azula tries not to shift under her Uncle’s stare, unsure if the expression he wears is guilt or disappointment. 

Uncle and niece were similar in that if there’s ever something they want, they find it easier to say it aloud. Only the delivery was different between them- Azula would command it while Iroh would coax it from a person until they assumed it was their idea to start with. It’s possible that’s what he did with this whole attempt at change, she mulls, trying to remember the exchange they’d had with Zuko over dinner. Regardless-

“So you were wrong,” she finishes, tossing a sheet of hair over her shoulder. “There was no metamorphosis at all.”

“I see,” Uncle nods, warm and slow as the fading sun. “You don’t feel any different?” While dismissing him was easy enough, the princess lingers on the question.

“It’s unlikely my abilities will ever come back, ” she concedes at last, fingers drawing along marks she previous dug into the tabletop. “But other than that- no. Nothing else has changed. I still hate this place and Zuko. And you, obviously.” She traces the veins she carved through the length of the wood, repeating her brother in a murmur, “The way I am, I can never go home.”

“Oh well,” and Iroh smiles softly, easing to his feet and holding out the girl’s apron. “I think that’s a good start.”

 

 

Winter is the worst time to be a fire bender. The sun’s limited presence throughout the season weakens them considerably compared to the warmer months. Healthy Fire Nation children are usually born in the summer. It was a sign of their father’s future favor that Azula arrived in July while Zuko was born in the depths of February. So the winter months are long, dark periods of decreased abilities and low birth rates. The changing of the seasons shouldn’t affect Azula quite as much this year, being already crippled as well as isolated form the nation of her birth, but it does nothing to raise her spirits.

Uncle leads the girl into the courtyard, eagerly pointing out the new addition to the artificial koi pond. Firefly Fish leap through the chill night air, streaks of light crossing one another’s paths before dimming to a low sparkle under water. Azula takes a seat and watches, disinterested.

“If it gets too cold we will move them to live in the shop, right?” Uncle sets a hand on her shoulder. “I’m counting on you to take care of them.”

“Animals don’t like me,” she yawns, squinting after the flicker of lights. From her position, their leaps into the air look like tiny bolts of lightning that shoot from one to the other. _When my abilities return, Uncle should teach me to redirect lightning_. 

Growling, she kicks out at the old man’s legs, causing him to nearly stumble into the pool

“Now what were you thinking about?” he laughs, passing her to head back inside.

It was a silly thought, she relents, tucking her legs underneath her body. What point was there thinking about lightning, harboring jealousy against insects? _With my old power I would have shot them out of the sky,_ she mourns.

Iroh sets a blanket over her shoulders, startling her from those thoughts. When she’s unfortunately a few seconds late changing her expression, he notices. When he takes a seat beside her, she asks- half to distract his concern, “I was under the impression these things could only live in the Fire Nation.”

“Oh, that’s just not true,” Iroh begins what she’s sure would be a very long story if he wasn’t sitting in dangerous elbowing distance of his niece. “Oof. All the creatures of the world can live beside one another in harmony. We live here, don’t we?”

“Please, that means nothing. Tiger seals don’t live here,” she points out stubbornly. “And these bugs didn’t come here by choice, they’re prisoners.”

“I didn’t say it was a perfect metaphor,” Uncle clears his throat and hurriedly changes the topic. “But look how beautiful they are.” He sighs happily, chin resting in his hand. “I think your mother will like to see this when she visits.” The fish dart between reflections of the courtyard lights as well as one another, as though they’re unable to tell them difference between the two. 

“Why would she want to see a stupid, harmless pet?” she snarls, lashing out at the water. Panicked, the fish spring to the corner of the pond farthest from their observers, where one beaches himself on the stones. Uncle dutifully stands up to eases the frightened fish back into the water. Within moments its forgotten the trauma and hops happily between its brothers. Iroh smiles across the pond to his niece while she forces a scowl back.

 

 

There’s a moment when Uncle slips on spilled tea, and- all the way in the kitchen- Azula hears the crack of his skull against the floor. When she emerges, customers are helping the laughing old man to his feet, and she isn’t sure if the grip around her heart was excitement or dread.

 

 

 

“Is this a joke?" Azula bristles at that condescending look Uncle wears when he makes assumptions on her emotions. 

“I do not joke about the White Lotus, Azula." He shifts the luggage over his back. Judging from the stoop of his shoulders, she can’t imagine he’s packed more than a weekend’s worth of food. That should be sign enough he’s not planning on abandoning you permanently, she muses. “It will not be a long mission. I’ll be home by the weekend.” The fact Azula doesn’t contest calling the apartment ‘home’ nearly makes Iroh blush with happiness.

“You're really going to leave me alone here,” she marvels at his stupidity.

“I suppose you will miss me terribly,” he shrugs helplessly, a minute motion under the weight of his baggage. “But don’t you worry. I've arranged the neighbors to check in on you. So no wild parties!”

“Neighbors!” she laughs. “Honestly, Uncle, I was sure you'd tell me Zuko was taking time off to guard me.”

“I see the fever has not dulled your sense of self-importance,” Iroh smirks. When Azula’s face twists into a particularly nasty expression, he takes that as his cue to leave ahead of schedule. “I've left money if you'd like to order food for you and your friends tonight.”

“What friends?” she barks as the curtain slides closed.

The lack of heat in the apartment occupies the rest of her day. The winter months have only made the shop colder than she’s accustomed to, and she remains disgracefully huddled for warmth in the kitchen, unable to regulate her body temperature. The thought occurs to Azula that cooking dinner would surely heat up the apartment. The only flaw in this realization is that cooking is a commoner’s duty. 

The upper echelon of Ba Sing Seh has a few nice restaurants Uncle dragged her to eat, some that even served Fire Nation delicacies. She peers between the cracks in the screens, trying to imagine herself sitting amongst earth benders, eating dinner happily alongside their pathetic every day cares. Shuddering despite the cold, she presses further on. If she remembers properly there’s a place where she can order a meal and take it home. The only challenge would be where it was located- potentially in the middle district.

In the past, Uncle was always with her when they left the shop. Naturally he would have to be to prevent her from escaping. Stricken with an all-consuming sense of betrayal and unfairness at such babysitting, she never bothered to look where they were going, leaving Azula without an accurate map of the city in her mind. Which would explain how she suddenly found herself hopelessly lost as well as hungry.

Unable to tell the difference in rooftops from a low angle, Azula hoists herself up on a stack of crates between buildings. In a normal situation, she seethes, it would be as easy as lighting one of these households on fire and using the glow from the flames to lead her way home. In a _truly_ normal situation, her brain continues its tirade, she wouldn’t be in this disgustingly overcrowded city. Didn’t the Earth King understand how to order a simple land reform to prevent urban overcrowding? Does Zuko? She growls aloud at the thought of her eventual homecoming to fat, over populated city burdened with waste- the greatest of all waste being her idiot brother-- She realizes she’s in the lower district.

Furiously, the girl drops from the green rooftops back to the dirty streets. How could she have got from the upper district all the way down here without noticing? Was she really so enamored with the prospect of Uncle leaving her alone that she turned off her basic directional sense? Or was she just too stupid to understand the passing of time after a prolonged imprisonment?

 _I'm not ashamed,_ she snarls back inside her own head. _I'm not afraid._ Azula cringes from the racket down one of the adjacent allies, watching several panther-bats scuffle amongst themselves for food. Street scum lingers between them, likely hoping to beg off a few scraps from the animals. It only takes a moment before the face beneath the grime comes to her memory. During her time as an occupying power, there were so many lives she crushed under her heel. This one, of course, was particularly sweet.

“Well, well,” she crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ve made quite a way for yourself back here in the streets.”

Long Feng raises his face from the vermin to the girl. Azula’s heart sings with his instant display of abhorrence, the way he lurches to his feet. Of course he hasn’t forgotten me, she thinks sumptuously. Out of everyone in this pathetic town, naturally the former leader of the Dai Li should be haunted by my face.

“I see the judicial workings of your kingdom remain subpar,” she jeers, and her empty stomach fills with a warm satisfaction at the sight of her rival’s squalor. “Allowing a Fire Nation collaborator to waltz the streets- what would the Earth King say?”

“The King recognizes the difficult decision many of his subjects had to make during your tyranny.” Even if the sound of his voice is rough, he still has the same acerbic bite to his words, an aristocratic upbringing that makes a run-in during these circumstances even better. 

Long Feng manages a mocking bow, adding, “Although I am hardly the only tiger that remains uncaged.”

Azula rolls her eyes, “Less wild beast and more pauper as far as I can tell.”

“And yet the princess is left serving tea,” he retorts, advancing on her when the man sees his words lay a blow against the princess. “What a delight it must be for our citizens, ordering around a former dictator.” Rolling her shoulders, Azula attempts to brush aside the comments. This man was keeping company with the rats, no amount of feverish hallucinations could bring you to his level.

“Not everyone has had the good sense to recognize me from my days as your sovereign.”

“Oh no, Princess,” he sneers. “It’s common knowledge you’ve been muzzled.” Calling the bluff of Azula’s arrogant expression, Long Feng thrusts his arms forward. Rock collides with one wrist and then the other, throwing her back into the wall. Her head collides with the stone next, leaving Azula pinned and bleary, squinting through swimming vision for her approaching attacker. The stone cuffs melt into the wall of the building, holding her hands fast. 

When the former Dai Li leader approaches, there's an ache in her wrists separate from the press of stone. From the corner of her eye, she can see the spark of blue light from her fingertips and feel a familiar electric hum in her pulse.

The lightning fizzled out in an instant with Long Feng meets the ground at her feet, two boulders heavyset against his back. Azula shifts her feet away, hoping the wretch will have the sense not to drool on her shoes.

The new boy steps over the body, releasing the stone bindings from Azula’s hands. He doesn’t seem to be much older than her, though stockier, wearing a White Lotus uniform and a particularly ridiculous mustache.

“Azula, right?” He smiles apprehensively. “My name is Haru. Your uncle asked me to look after you." The young man trails off uncertainly when Azula spits onto his white collar. "um. You’re welcome?"

“Of course he had me followed,” she snarls, rubbing her sore wrists and avoiding the rescuer’s gaze. “I hardly see why you found it necessary to step in.”

“What are you doing down here?” Haru’s hands are on his hip, cautiously looking around the teenagers for any more potential threats. “Did you get lost looking for a restaurant?” When his joke falls flat with the truth, the earth bender at least has the decency to change the subject. “uh Anyway, we should hurry for the main gate.”

“The main gate?” Azula echoes dumbly, scowling at herself. “You’re acting as though you intend to take me out of the city.”

“That’s right,” Haru nods and Azula can hear her hunger protest audibly. “I’m under orders from the White Lotus.”

“My uncle?” 

The boy groans furiously behind her, though he clearly lacks the confidence to challenge her. “Your uncle didn't tell you everything.”

“Oh, how surprising,” she snaps. Regardless if she knows which direction is the teashop, Azula starts walking in any direction opposite of her rescuer. She flexes her fingers, searching for that spark. 

“He left because the Nationalists have captured Omashu.” Azula pauses in her steps away from this new earth bending nuisance, weighing the significance of such a victory. I’m happy for this, she considers. The nationalists support Father and so do I.

Azula peers back at him, largely disinterested. “That’s no surprise. It always was a laughably fortified city.”

“Will you listen to me?” Haru pleads, trying to get in the girl’s way. “Your Uncle is heading them off before they advance to Ba Sing Seh. He thinks they’re coming to get you-”

“Me!” She laughs, flipping hair over her shoulder. “Honestly, I hope you're not looking to inherit some sort of position under the King. I think his Bear is a great deal more intelligent than you.”

“That’s what the other members tried to convince him!” he stammers, adding hurriedly. “Not the bear part, but that they don't want you. They want your uncle."

“So let them have Uncle Fatso,” she shrugs. “He can take care of himself. Anyway, if they do manage to capture him, my brother will pay whatever ransom they want.” She pauses, casting a glance after him from the night sky. “What do they want with Uncle anyway?”

“To kill him.” Azula hates to admit her hesitation was several seconds longer than she had intended.

“And what do I care about that?” she scoffs.

“Look, it really doesn’t matter if you care or not, but my orders are to get you out of Ba Sing Seh,” Haru explains, clearly relieved to finally have the girl’s attention beyond insults.

“Back to the Fire Nation?” Hoping for such a return would be too much to expect, Azula’s reasons, walls sliding up between her and a singular desire. “My brother told me Ba Sing Seh was the only place to keep me away from the nationalists. Surely some loser like you taking me into the desert only makes their job easier.” Frustrated with her obstinate behavior, Azula wonders for a moment if she scared the other boy off. But Haru’s retreat is short lived, returning to the princess’s side with an ostrich horse, its saddle bearing the White Lotus seal as well. Highly visible for a secret organization, she sniffs.

“The Earth King doesn’t want anything to do with you or your Uncle,” he announces, summoning up all of his courage to deliver the final ultimatum. “If Iroh gets away from the Nationalists, he’s supposed to go back to the Fire Nation.” The blame in his eyes, the intensity that he uses when he speaks of their banishment- Azula thinks this wouldn’t be too terrible of a man. Mustache aside. “The both of you are the Firelord’s problem, not ours.”

She supposes she can’t be the only thing is this pathetic city expected to change. She nods in agreement, climbing onto the ostrich horse. When Haru tries to climb up behind her, she easily pushes him to the ground. They set towards the inner wall once he finds his own means of conveyance.

 

 

After a day of riding, Azula realizes Uncle will get to move back into the palace. Won’t Zuzu be happy to have that old man at his beck and call again, she fumes. Not that she harbored any intense desire to live with either of them. However, if Iroh is forced to leave their home in Ba Sing Seh, it raises the uncomfortable question of where Azula is expected to go. Maybe they’ve changed their mind as well, she wonders, sliding the harness through her scarred palms. Surely it would be possible to allow me to live at least within the capital. He had promised if she changed, didn’t he? Barring that wasn’t part of the fever hallucinations; she was as good as Fire Lord again.

“Is my brother meeting me?” the princess asks, voice bright. Haru clearly doesn’t know what to make of the girl’s cheery disposition.

“No, although- um, I’m sure he wants to.” Haru hesitates through the nicety, clearly unsure how siblings feel for one another, particularly ones of royal estrangement. “No, one of the Avatar’s friends should be meeting with us just past these ravines.” He stops fast to meet with Azula’s own halt. “What?”

If it’s them, Azula’s destination is clear. Of course Zuko’s friends wouldn’t take her back to the Fire Nation to live happily at the palace. They wouldn’t stand for Firelord Azula even if she had changed. No, her mind races, surely they would meet with her to end her life. That disgusting water bending girl or her smarmy brother or the pint sized earth bender. And if they were too cowardly to kill her, they’d just escort back to the asylum. With those two options as her only choice, Azula can feel her blood run cold.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Haru reins the ostrich horse alongside hers, clearly wavering on if the crazy princess’s issue was real or imagined. She spots his expression change watching her whitening face, her fingers draw tight against the mount. _That’s the look someone wears when they’re pitying you_ her mind rails, fighting fear with anger, with pride. Azula’s lip curls, imagining the expressions the Avatar’s smug friends will wear when they choke the life out of her, or the way their laughter will dog her final moments. When her eyes slide to meet Haru’s, she imagines them like the eyes of the Dai Li she ordered the drill to roll over, the snap of their bones as she strode through his country’s capital under a simple deception. Despite her accomplishments, how easily Long Feng could have stopped her once and for all in that alley. Even after my fever, after what should have been a metamorphosis, the best Zuko can do is send his friends to finish the job.

“Let’s get going,” Haru begins, trying to pull his traveling partner (prisoner!) from her freeze. “Don’t you want to go home?” 

It was a stupid fantasy, imagining a homecoming in anything other than a coffin.

“The way I am, I can never go home,” she hisses, knuckles bone white, body shaking. As expected from filthy commoners with no upbringing to speak of, Haru makes a bold attempt at physical contact to comfort her. Her muscles respond in kind, twisting under the pads of his fingertips, snaking along his arm to pull, to wait for the snap, to brand fire along the length of his bicep.

“You’re crazy!” the earth bender cries and the ground beneath them shudders reflexively. Azula’s frightened eyes meet his, and for a split second she considers this White Lotus nobody could just as easily be her executioner.

Lightening crackles between her fingers as she steps over his body. Haru makes a few pathetic whimpering noises (like old times, she thinks). Climbing onto the mount without the White Lotus saddle (when had she fallen off?) Azula reins the mount away from the proposed meeting spot and the direction they came. Squinting after the sun, she leaves behind her proposed rescuer, aiming for Omashu.

 

 

Deep in the desert she loses track of time (and direction), but Azula assumes it’s around dusk when the ostrich horse runs away from her. To be fair, she was discussing rather foolishly a plan to fry the steed and eat meat from its bones. But in her defense it was mostly an empty threat with only a grasp on lightning and not fire. How was she supposed to know that thing understand human speech?

Without a possible food source to chat with, Azula’s mind wanders to the White Lotus member who had attempted her capture.

I should have killed him, she rages, slouching under the swing of sand. Then laid in wait for whatever pathetic companion of the Avatar appeared for the meeting and finished them off as well.

She has to admit running away in this sort of situation- she’s more lost than she ever was in Ba Sing Seh. At least in this place the likelihood of being accosted by Long Feng was relatively low. She smirks. How nice it would be to see his expression one more time, illuminated by the crackle of lightning under her fingers. 

When it becomes clear the sandstorm will only worsen, Azula pitches a makeshift tent under her traveling cloak. Lying in the dunes, she runs her hands against sore knuckles. 

Both times the return of her abilities felt like trying to generate sparks underwater. It’s likely I’m doing some damage to myself with these attacks, she admits. But even with that in mind, overwhelming euphoria sweeps through her as her abilities finally, naturally, _expectedly_ have returned. Even if all she has is her lightning, that will be enough. Months of helplessness, weeks of starting fires with flints, days of self-reflection and hours of sacrificing her self-worth were certainly not wasted for this triumphant return to power. If Uncle could see this--

 _If so, then what?_ her mind snaps. Azula sits up and squints through the storm, trying to trace her earlier path and current trail of thought. What would she care if their idiot uncle saw her abilities again? To prove him wrong- but Iroh had never accused her of being crippled. That was Zuko. Uncle just tried to convince her not to do useless things. She sneers in self-satisfaction. Obviously it wasn’t useless if those actions had brought her abilities back.

Movement at the edge of her tent startles Azula from this reverie. Rushing to arm herself against the would-be intruder, the princess is disappointed when it’s only a small Shirshu looking for shelter. She places the knife back into her boot, settling back into the sand. The infant creature staggers towards her inquisitively. They were always such ugly creatures, she mourns. It’s a great irony they never get to know what an unsightly presence they brought into this world.

“You’re very lucky,” and when she speaks, its nose turns up a full ninety degrees. “Shirshu meat is disgusting. I’d rather starve than bother eliminating you.” Nevertheless, its presence is quite unappealing, so Azula gladly kicks it out of her makeshift tent. She pauses to repeat the action when it wanders in again, ignoring the pained yelp. Happily, she follows its panicked pace with interest. Like target practice, she muses, holding out a hand seal for lightning between her fingers. However after several irritating squeaky minutes, it becomes apparent Azula’s lightning is not coming. 

With a groan in frustration, she throws herself down to collapse into a furious, shivering sleep. If only the ugly thing would stop inching up to her, that is. With a grunt Azula forces the creature away, only to have it lumber back to that same spot. Eventually her exhaustion and the heat from its tiny body overcome her, and she allows it stay nestled against her midsection. 

Surely there was an explanation for her abilities’ newfound fickleness. Time of day didn’t matter, distance of the target... She ran through several possibilities, fingers absently running through the dozing Shirshu’s fur. When the realization struck her, she tenses so violently the creatures shrieked under her fingernails.

In both instances, hadn’t she been afraid? How miserable, Azula growls. Fear was never even a factor in her life before Zuko overthrew Father. Pathetic. Furthermore, wouldn’t a frightened person have a clouded mind, a mind that was incapable of summoning lightning? If Uncle was here, she relents; he would probably know why this is happening. She wonders who's looking after the shop in their absence. 

A funny prickling at the corner of her eyes reminds her not to waste water. You're dehydrated enough already, Azula chides. The wail of the storm drowns out whatever embarrassing noises she considers making in this ridiculous state. Don't be foolish, she snarls. 

She can't tell the difference between a headache and a budding fever.

 

 

When she wakes, the earlier headache has compounded to a blinding migraine made worse by the glare of the sun. She dissembles the shoddy camp, curiously noting the Shirshu has all but disappeared. Shrugging aside the latest abandonment, the princess carries on through the last stretch of desert.

It should take several days to reach Omashu, she reasons. Azula is halfway through deducing where in the desert she’s position (somewhere between north and lost) before she senses movement in the dunes behind her. So the little mongrel can’t stay away.

“I know you’re back there,” Azula calls over a shoulder to the Shirshu. “Come on out.” Smiling despite herself, she turns to meet an arrow pointed directly between her eyes.

 

 

The blindfolded march through their hideout is boring enough, mostly because she’s quite sure she’s seen the place multiple times before. There were only a limited amount of encampments west of the Great Divide. At the very least, she assumes she ought to thank her captors for giving her a sense of bearing again. She wonders what sort of simpletons have joined up with such a worthy cause if they’ve forgotten her former rank. Hearing their anxious whispers over her head, Azula’s mouth quirks into a slow sneer with the realization that they’re fourteen floors up. This is the Pohuai Stronghold of the Yu Yan Archers. She approved the blueprints regarding its latest remodeling. She hopes she doesn’t start crying again out of sheer happiness to finally have something familiar between her tightly bound hands. 

When they return her sight, Azula is blessed with another welcome sight- The former banner used by the previous Firelord, father’s banner. So Pohuai was taken by nationalists, she observes, eyes sliding between a set a very stern looking middle-aged men. Likely career soldiers drafted during father’s reign that got the taste for expansionism. They’d be the sort to object to Zuko’s new policies.

“I suppose you think you're here to convince me of something.” Azula makes sure when the silence is broken in these tense situations, it’s always done by her. Her hands may be bound, but it asserts her dominance over these walking cannon fodder men. 

A man standing near the back is the first to reply, likely because his low rank is due to an underdeveloped brain that has him speaking without thinking first.

“As if you have any idea what we’re planning.”

“You’re luring my Uncle to under the guise you’re attempting to infiltrate the Earth Kingdom to obtain me, but in truth your motivation is to eliminate him, the Fire Lord’s greatest confidant.” When her explanation is met with a table of dumbfounded expressions, her good mood soars. How I missed the high ground, she revels. “I’m sorry,” Azula sneers. “Was it supposed to be a secret? Because some kid in a mustache told me your whole great plan yesterday.” 

“Your knowledge of our plan is not our concern,” a seated soldier brushes aside the unsettled murmurs of his comrades. His position at the table and heraldry on his armor is proof enough he proved himself in battle enough to be commended for abilities in both brains and brawns. However, as his face is not familiar to Azula, she is well assured he remained a low enough ranking captain to warrant obscurity during Zuko’s purges. “Your main concern right now you be your own fate, not Iroh’s-“

“I’m crazy and I could tell you that’s a bad idea,” Azula cuts into the older man’s advice, too delighted at her turn of fortune to let anyone get a word in edgewise. “However my brother has screwed up in the last eight months, they’re his mistakes alone. That Fuddy-Duddy Uncle of ours might pride himself on being related to my father, but he’s as much a Fire Lord as he is a bowl of fried rice. He doesn’t have a shred of advice for Zuko in this situation, and Zuko’s nothing like him- even if he wants to be.” 

“You’ve grown attached,” a nondescript soldier scoffs.

“Please,” she waves the topic aside. “You want to find Uncle and kill him, go ahead. I’m only telling you it’d be worthless.” “If by some miracle your men best him in combat, Zuko’s previous leniency towards you will be as dead as your target. He’ll have the Avatar massacre you.”

Azula regrets to admit when the captain slammed a fist on the table, she flinched. Those reflexes of mine are getting shoddy, she mourns. First mistaking an archer for my new pet Shirshu, and now this.

“We have no interest in you,” the nationalist growls and echoes Azula’s previously motion, as if casting her suggestions aside as well. “The Avatar has already dealt with you.” A strange pit in her stomach grows, as if watching the firefly koi gasp for air on the rocks of Uncle’s garden. “You are neither princess or fire bender in our eyes.” She has to admit if these men thought so little of her father’s lineage to go against their Fire Lord, she shouldn’t expect them to have much respect for the rest of the family. The waves of heat from her fever ebb beneath her temples. If not a fire lord, or a princess, or a bender- what is she?

“Oh please,” she shrugs, hoping the forced motion will throw the hounds off the scent of her misery. “I don’t lie awake wondering what a bunch of disorganized rebels with shoddy plans think of me.” Naturally this same pack of men don’t think much of her opinions either, however their attention seems unavoidably picqued when Azula adds, “I’m not sure I’ll remember you when I take the grand prize, though.” She leans back in her chair, waiting for the inevitable slower rebels to break and ask-

“What prize?”

“My father.” She leers at the outburst that ignites.

“There’s no way she can manages that,” a man with the markings of a second lieutenant growls. How she missed military rankings. “You would need a method of penetrating the deepest cell beneath the palace-“

“Through the catacombs,” she yawns, easily cutting off their next cries. “Which only a member of the royal family would know how to navigate, and what do you know? You really _do_ need me.” 

As much as they might hate to admit it, the ringing silence her comment beckons is proof enough for Azula. These idiots still don’t have a bad to achieve a simple rescue mission for Father. They really are only good to absorb the blows by the enemy, aren’t they?

“So maybe you should all stop thinking if I have my fire bending, and consider if I’m going to bother to include you in this excursion at all.” Azula remains mum for the rest of their deductions. As far as the captain is concerned, Azula’s only use is to guide them to the cells. From there they can slit her throat for all he scares. When a few soldiers look particularly gleeful at that proposal, Azula reminds herself of the return of her abilities, at least with lightning. She considers reminding the men that to fight them, she’ll need to be frightened. So they’ll have to try much harder than that.

Albeit reluctantly, the nationalists have a room prepared for her. Although it locks from the outside, Azula finds herself feeling less like a prisoner than she has in the past year. She settles to sleep on a cot adorned with a Shirshu pelt, although almost too giddy to keep her eyes closed. 

As Azula drifts to an excited slumber, the princess can’t help but notice the pelt isn’t as warm as the real thing.


End file.
